With the advent of online storage and collaboration techniques, users are now able to conveniently share their personal or professional data (such as text files, multi-media files, or any form of electronic document) with family, friends, peers, or colleagues. An extension of this concept is now offered by web tools that allow sharing of web notes amongst users. There are multiple web tools that allow users to, a) manually create a web note in form of standalone memos, task reminders or to-do lists, b) store the web note on third party server/cloud or local to their mobile devices and desktops, and c) share it with other users.
A vital implementation of web notes is now found in the website environment. Typically, when a user encounters a useful piece of information on a webpage of a website, he can add a note (also known as annotations or write-ups) and share it with other users. This feature is facilitated by browser-based solutions or related art techniques, in particular a plug-in allows a user to create an annotation, save it, and/or share it. The save option of this plug-in stores the created annotation in one of the following ways: a) as cookies, b) on the hard disk of the user's machine, or c) on a third party server/cloud. Further, using the share option, the user can send the annotation to other users via social media or cloud integrated platforms. However, there are a few shortcomings of such a solution. First, when the annotations are saved as cookies or on the user's machine, this data is prone to accidental deletion. Further, secure environments tend to have cookies disabled. If the machine gets corrupted, the stored annotations can be lost. Also, since the plug-in is tied to a browser, which in turn is machine specific, this technique limits user's access across devices. For example, if an annotation was created and saved on a personal computer, it cannot be accessed by the user on any other device (or other personal computer). The user will need to re-install the plug-in on other devices to create annotations, which are again locally stored on those devices. This technique is also limited to web browsers and cannot be mobile applications or desktop applications. Second, when the annotations are saved on third party server/cloud and are shared via publically available channels (such as social media handles or cloud hosting sites), chances of data getting exposed to potential misuse increases—thereby raising data security risk. Third, this technique does not take into account the annotations at a user interface level. In other words, there is no cohesive association between multiple annotations added to a single web page, or annotations added to multiple web pages of a single website. In browser-based techniques, each annotation is treated as a standalone entry in a browsing session. Therefore, the users cannot track the annotations at each web page, or even annotations across the website. There is also no provision for tracking what annotations were shared with which users. Hence, there is no application or user context associated with these browser based annotation techniques. Further, since the annotations are saved on a machine, a user needs to perform a manual search on the disk files to identify the required annotations. This is a cumbersome and a time consuming exercise. Finally, this scheme is limited to generic websites, and is not reliably applicable for business related websites or applications. In business scenarios, browser plug-ins are usually blocked and/or cookies may be disabled. Also, sharing of data outside of the business network is not recommended. Thus, in light of the aforementioned shortcomings, it may be beneficial to provide methods and systems for securely and reliably managing annotations (for applications or websites, especially in a business setting).